The Big C and the Big Question

As of 12:38pm on Monday November 29, 2021, I have not received the COVID-19 vaccine. Neither has my husband or my daughter.

That statement alone might provoke some of you to click out of this article. To curse me under your breath as stupid or selfish. Some of you might even accuse me of being a ‘Trump-ite’, which I can assure you is very far from the truth.

I won’t get into what I believe about your responses to my beliefs. I won’t talk about your fear or your lack of will to listen and I won’t try to overcome the judgements you hurl at me. I won’t be talking about that today, anyway.

Today I want to talk about why I have not gotten the vaccine, how I feel about the vaccine, and what the chances are of me getting vaccinated moving forward. Those of you who read my blog frequently know that I never make a decision out of fear, or selfishness, or without a lot of thought, care, and consideration. With this in mind, I hope to share my perspective and my experience in hopes that maybe those of you who look at unvaccinated individuals as one demographic, may have a change of heart. My only goal is to help move as many people as I can to a place where we can all talk about our differences, have respect for each other, and coexist peacefully.

Since the COVID vaccine was rolled out in my area in May, I had been debating whether or not I would get it. To be honest, typing this out now, I can’t even tell you that I was vehemently against it during that time. I was cautious, because it was a new vaccine, and my MO was to wait until more information came out about it, before taking it myself. I still wore a mask and socially distanced, out of respect for those around me.

August came and I contracted COVID. I remember it was day 3 of feeling symptoms, and I still had not received a positive COVID test yet, but something in my gut told me that I had it. I PANICKED. I was standing in my shower shaking at the thought of bringing the big bad COVID into my house. How could I have done this and possibly affected my husband and my family? I had the thought that if my COVID test came back negative, I would be marching right over to CVS to get my COVID vaccine. I felt out of control, felt fear, and then made a decision from that place of fear to attempt to regain control, instead of accepting that I do not have control. This has NEVER worked for me in my life.

I was sick with COVID for about 2 weeks. I felt like dog poo the first 5 days with body aches, a fever, a headache, nausea and vomiting, loss of taste and smell, and fatigue. After the 5th day, I had to slowly work on getting my energy back. Getting up to do a yoga stretch and then taking myself right back to bed. Walking out to my porch to sit outside for 10 minutes before taking myself back inside. After about 2 weeks, my sense of taste and smell returned. I still tested positive after I had cleared all symptoms, and no one could tell me why. But overall, I took care of myself the way I would’ve with any normal sickness: rest, liquids, and TLC.

One of the photos I snapped as I was 
sitting on my front porch enjoying the
sun. Getting Vitamin D in this way was one 
of the most nourishing ways I took care of
myself during COVID. 

My daughter also contracted COVID, but she was asymptomatic.
The weirdest part of the whole ordeal? MY HUSBAND NEVER GOT IT. We live in a very small 2 bedroom 1 bath home, so the chances of him not getting it were slim to none, it was pretty much impossible to socially distance. We were required by my work to get periodic testing as they would not allow me to return to work until everyone in the house tested negative for COVID, and my husband tested negative almost 5 different times. It was to the point where he asked me to please stop scheduling him tests; he clearly wasn't getting it, and he felt like he was wasting resources.

My husband is 5'8 and almost 230 lbs. He fits CNN's demographic of individuals who are at a higher risk of serious infection, and he never even contracted it. No one could tell me why that was either. When I had my conversation with the Arizona Department of Health Services for their contact tracing purposes, they asked me more questions than they did provide any answers on what I was going through.

Seeing the way the people around me were provoked into fear because of my diagnosis was a trip. I had people texting me that refused to use the 'C' word, living in a reality where it doesn't exist, and I had people who would not come near me long after I had cleared the symptoms. I had one family member who told me that I had to get the vaccine or they would not have a relationship with me anymore. They later backed out of that comment, apologized, and said ultimately the decision was my choice. All different responses coming from the same place: fear.

While I was laid up on my couch losing my DAMN mind not being able to do anything (if you don’t know how hard that is for me, I reflect on this in my post 'Why Relaxing Feels Impossible') I fell down the rabbit hole of vaccine side effects. Again, I will use those words and that alone will make some of you click out of this article. And for a while, I was like you. I thought that a lot of the information online was coming from people who were making things up to stir the pot. There are a lot of trigger happy people right now that are just looking for a fight, I will validate that. And I’m sure some of that information is fabricated by those individuals, but there are too many authentic reports of vaccine side effects to ignore.

I’ve read post after post of healthy women my age being riddled with blood clots through their bodies within hours of the second dose of the vaccine. Parents who took their children to these vaccine trials and their children were left with life changing neurological side effects as a result. Too many people I’ve seen lose a loved one to a stroke or pulmonary embolism within a day after receiving the vaccine. Too many Tik Tok’s of people making fun of the unvaccinated for not getting the vaccine, only to be apologizing and documenting their journey through side effects days later. The worst part about all of this? You’re not seeing these stories on your timeline not because they don’t exist. You’re not seeing these stories on your timeline because Facebook is literally CENSORING them.

If you try to look up the hashtag ‘covid vaccine side effects’ on Instagram, you’re redirected to a page with CDC information. If you mention something about the vaccine or COVID, Instagram puts a little note automatically at the bottom of your post stating whether you’re right in your information or whether you’re wrong. Could you imagine experiencing a side effect, posting it on Instagram to get the word out there, and then being hit by a “The COVID-19 vaccines go through many safety trials…” kind of a comment from Instagram? What a slap in the face.

A few weeks ago, on November 2 2021, there was a panel in Washington D.C. offering a platform to those who have been injured by the COVID-19 vaccine. Have you heard any mainstream media outlet talk about it? Absolutely not. Admitting that this vaccine is causing side effects in thousands of people would directly contradict their narrative and what they’re trying to propagate.

So how does this all relate to me? Well, I have a medical history that directly correlates to many of those side effects. I have had pericarditis before, which automatically makes me more likely to develop myocarditis. I have already had COVID, which according to Dr. Sanjay Gupta increases my chances of side effects from the COVID-19 vaccine. And the biggest influence on my hesitancy is my grandmother’s early death at 52 years old due to ALS, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, a progressive nervous system disease that affects the brain and spinal cord, a neurological disease that we don’t know the cause of. When my grandmother was diagnosed with ALS in the mid 90’s, they didn’t give her an ‘ALS’ test. They gave her every test under the sun based on her symptoms to rule everything else out to then come to an ALS diagnosis. That’s how little is known about this neurological disease. They’ve made a few scientific progressions over the years in understanding how it works and where it comes from, and some scientists believe it could be genetic.

So I hope you hear my next comment with an open heart: Why would I readily sign up for a vaccine that is causing neurological side effects of an unknown origin when I have direct family history with neurological disease? ESPECIALLY, when no one with any real power or authority is even willing to validate that those side effects are real?

The issue is not the vaccine, and the issue is not the science. The issue is the lack of transparency, the lack of information, and the forcing of ideologies. On Joe Rogan’s podcast, Dr. Sanjay Gupta admitted that most doctors are either not reporting vaccine side effects or are trying to find other causes for the side effects because they don’t want to contribute to vaccine hesitancy. He also said that the main reason he got the COVID-19 vaccine, was because he was fearful of what COVID would do to his body. So in one breath, you’ve admitted that you made a personal decision out of a fear of not being in control, and you admitted that doctors everywhere are making decisions from the same place of fear. And I’m supposed to trust that what you all are telling me is best for ME, and not best for you?

I have to say that was easily the most frustrating part about being sick with COVID: It felt like there was absolutely no where to find an unbiased assessment of COVID, the vaccine, the risks, the effects, and ultimately empower me to make a decision for myself. Every piece of information was tainted with bias, one article might only show me part of the data because they want me to get the vaccine, and another article might only show me part of the data because they don’t want me to get the vaccine. Here’s a thought: why don’t you give me ALL of the information and let me make the decision for myself?

We grew up with this idea that journalism and science are supposed to be unbiased, fact, they are what they are. But in this current climate it feels like everyone is being driven by their own hidden agendas. Confirmation bias has become mainstream.

I will validate for myself that there is nothing wrong with me not wanting to take a vaccine where I am more prone than others to be affected by a neurological side effect that could stay with me for the rest of my life. It does not mean I support Trump, it does not make me selfish, and it certainly does not mean I am a dumb or evil person. If the day comes when someone unbiasedly provides me with reasoning and facts as to why I don’t need to be concerned about these side effects and why this vaccine is safe, then I will be more than willing to listen and adjust my perspectives as needed. But in this present moment, you cannot guarantee me 100% that I will be safe taking a COVID-19 vaccine.

So why do you think it is okay to mandate me to take one? Will the government financially cover the medical costs of me dealing with side effects? Will they offer financial compensation to my family if I pass away? Will they provide me with disability if my side effects prevent me from my previous quality of life? Maybe these are the questions we should be asking before we interrogate and bully someone into taking a vaccine to make us more comfortable in our own fear.

Me 4 days into my COVID sickness
It was not a walk in the park
I understand the caution
I understand the need for a vaccine
But a vaccine that could hurt me 

worse than this virus?
That's just not a risk I'm willing to take 

 

I’ll end this by giving you a comparison. At the beginning of the pandemic, it came out early on that this virus had a 99.5% survival rate. The argument was that even though only .5% of the population was dying from this virus, that was still thousands of people. Compassionate voices chorused saying things like “Don’t you care about your grandma or mine?” or “Don’t you care about those who are immune-compromised?” And so we socially distanced, we stayed home from our jobs, we masked up, to help protect the vulnerable of our society, even if we ourselves weren’t at so much of a risk. Now, 18 months later, the same voices that spoke up for the vulnerable are the same people saying “It’s only a small number of people experiencing side effects, its such a small percentage of a risk, you need to just take the vaccine”. So I will pose the same question to you, that you posed to everyone else 18 months ago: Do those people not matter? Do those who are permanently affected by the COVID-19 vaccine not matter? Do those who have lost their lives to the vaccine not matter?

Here’s my thought: no matter what each of us are experiencing, no matter who we voted for, no matter what region of the country we live in, no matter whether we agree or not, we all matter. We are at a fork in the road and the way I see it, we have two options. We can either see each other as actual human beings who do not fit into tidy black and white boxes, but rather have much more complicated emotions and reasons for why we do things, and be willing to sit down and have conversations with each other even if we are coming from different perspectives. Or, and that’s a big OR, we can continue to look at certain perspectives as right and other perspectives as wrong and continue hurting, silencing, and stripping the rights of each other in the process until there is no America left.